Excluder doors on Trio standard compartment

[Guest]

I was shopping for the Excluder doors for my Trio 6 story castle (1970 vintage) and the PMCA talks about using it with the enlarged compartment which is not an option for me on the Castle. Will the Excluder doors work fine on the small 6"x6" compartments?
Thanks

[Guest]

Yup, part#sed6 good luck to yea.

[Guest]

Yup, part#sed6 good luck to yea.

[electraglideman]

I would highly recommend that you enlarge your rooms if you add excluder doors. There are instructions on how to do this on the PMCA site.

[Laverne]

Hi Neighbor.

I'm just South of Pearland in Alvin. I had wooden housing with 6X6 compartments for about six years. Excluder entrances work just fine for the martins, and will keep the starlings out of 6X6 compartments. The main reason for enlarging the compartments is to give the growing nestlings and their parents more room inside the cavity. 6X6 is pretty cramped quarters. Another reason, just as important, is to give the nestlings and their parents enough depth to retreat from a predator (usually an owl) that is reaching in trying to grab them and drag them out for dinner.

In this part of Texas, there is a dense population of PMs and they will nest in almost anything. I try to provide them with the safest, most comfortable environment I am capable of providing.

Best wishes to you for a successful season. Welcome to the Purple Martin Forum and stay in touch...

Sincerely,
Laverne

[CraigMo.]

Sorry to but in on this topic, Hi Laverne, Glad to see you back and running on the forum again and remember to check your private mail_______

[John Miller]

You should not put a SREH on a 6 x 6 compartment. In particular, the Trio door with SREH is 1/4 inch from the bottom of the floor, as it should be. With a half inch of nest, the martins may get trapped. Further, some folks feel that at a newer site, martins just won't enter. It may be that they peep in and see the back wall and are not motivated.

John Miller

[Guest]

If you don't enlarge the compartments the adults will trap themselves. In the smaller compartments the PM's tend to build a mud dam in front of the entrance. I have had these high enough to block the entrance hole and had to cut some mud away so I could see the bottom of the nest bowl. If you don't intend to expand the compartments, I would suggest you not use the excluders or any other SREH doors.

[Guest]

Well, thats what I was thinking that I might trap them inside seeing that the excluder entrance is so close to the floor if I left them six by six. If I don't get a chance to enlarge the compartments this year I will leave the standand size openings. I have been doing this for 8 years and ussally trap and shoot the starlings that come around toward the first of the season. Its just more work without the excluders. I have them on my gourds so theres no problem there.
Thanks for the advise on not blocking the entrances..
Good to know the forum is still going strong after being away from it for a while..

[Guest]

I have a Castle My grandfather bought before he died in '66. I have not modified the room size. Last year I had 16 crescents, 4 excluders, and 4 rounds. Only one of the excluders was occupied. I lost one female to wing hang I didn't see. But I lost an ASY pair plus another female in round holes to starling attack (I caught him finishing up his evil and did away with him as humanely as I could muster after winging him with a pellet).
My advice: go to the crescents and get an owl guard from the PMCA. Increase the size or not, your choice. I think the single rooms are fine in my colony (I have just as good occupancy there as in my Coates Suites. True, generally the clutch sizes are larger in the double cavities, but frankly when you have a bad year for weather smaller clutch sizes are not a bad thing for mom and dad when the bugs get scarce.) My martins in round holes have always built HUGE mud dams to protect themselves, but in the SREH, the mud dams have always been no more than level with the bottom of the opening, so never a problem at least in my experience. And after last year no more round holes ever!
Bottom line-IF YOU HAVE EVER SEEN A STARLING WITHIN A HALF MILE OF YOUR HOUSING, LET ALONE ON YOUR HOUSING, INSTALL SREH! It's a heart breaker to see what they can do.

[RC Moser]

J Gragg, I have experience martins getting hung up in crescents also. IMO it is just as high or higher that other srehs due to less overall area of Crescents and the have half moon design with the shape corners. I think this happens when two males are fighting for the cavity and one gets turned sideways and his wing gets hung up outside and his body inside for what I have observed.

I like WDC's You might want to try some of them if your hang up continues. I don't have nothing against crescents and they are surely better than round when starlings are a theat. But after loosing two and freeing one in crescents as my colony grew I switched to WDC's and haven't had a hang up yet. I just think the precentages are smaller with that design IMO.

[Guest]

I'm trying some of Sandy's WDC tunnels this year in my SGs. I'm also going to file out the corners on the crescents to see if this helps prevent the hang. Plus alot more walk arounds when it's early and they are forming their pair bonds and doing the most fighting.

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

If you have the crescents, you can actually round out the ends with a small dremel sanding bit, that should decrease the hanging effect. It matters not much what the ends look like, its the 1-3/16 inch center part that you should not sand...By sanding the sharp end to a round hole, I doubt that the martins would get hung up on the round corner. Just make sure the ends don't get but about 7/8in big around.

[Guest]

I see that the PMCA does not sell the WDC entrances for trio housing. Where do I purchase these?

thank you

[Louise Chambers]

BD,

You can get plates from PMCA with Modified Excluder entrances (WDC) to put on the Trio doors you already have. Or PMCA has replacement Trio doors with either crescent or original Excluder entrance. No one offers Trio doors already equipped with WDC entrances.

Louise

[Matt F.]

Louise,
Given that the Excluder Trio doors are made by another manufacturer, is urging that supplier to make WDC excluder doors, something that you and the other great folks at the PMCA could possibly push for?
I'm sure that would be hot item at Martin Marketplace.

[Louise Chambers]

We can ask - don't know what tooling costs the mfg would be faced with, but we will mention it to them.

good idea

Louise

[Guest]

I would be in for 24 if PCMA offered to sell.
I would buy the WDC panels to modify my door but my 30 year old doors are getting ragged from use so I thought I would replace the door and prevent starlings. Killing two birds with one stone so they say.. can I say that here?

[~Patrick~]

I have excluder doors on my 12 compartment and my 6 compartment Trio aluminum houses. The martins readily accepted them and they've been in use for 2 years with no trapped birds. I had starlings kill adult martins before I added the excluders.

Best of luck this martin season,

Patrick

[RC Moser]

I have found that the trio door are easy to make or cut out for the sreh plates. Cut out a square hole with a chisel and pop rivet the WDC Plates over them.

You can make trio doors by flatting out the old door drawing the pattern onto sheet metal from the hardware store and cut them out with tin snipes. I make the hinge slots with a grinder using the thickness of the blade. Bend the edges over in a vise. Now you have tuffer longer lasting doors that don't crack at the hinge point or want to fold up when you try to open them. If you make a new door you can just cut the sreh entry hole right into it using a chisel, jig saw, or rotor zip saw with sanding wheel. You want to sand all edges anyway.